Delegation Led by Mike Gallagher Says U.S. Support for Taiwan Is Firm

Visiting American lawmakers sought to assure Taiwan on Thursday that the United States would stand by it in the face of pressure from China, while warning that uncertainty over proposed new military aid for Ukraine could weaken U.S. efforts to deter Beijing from moving aggressively against the island democracy.

“America stands with Taiwan, and you can draw upon a deep reservoir of friendship and support from the United States Congress,” Representative Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican leading the bipartisan House delegation, told Taiwan’s president-elect, Lai Ching-te, who takes office in May.

The lawmakers also met with Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen. Journalists in Taipei, the capital, were allowed to watch initial remarks in both meetings before being ushered out.

The five representatives in the delegation — all members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which Mr. Gallagher heads — are the latest in a recent succession of American visitors to voice support for Taiwan, at a time when leaders in Washington are also trying to shore up security support for Ukraine and Israel.

Over the years, Taiwan, which has no formal diplomatic ties with the United States, has often turned to U.S. lawmakers for backing, and the current divisions in Congress over aid for Ukraine have highlighted the influence they can have over the use of American power abroad.

Taiwan officials fear that the coming presidential transition could bring economic retaliation and intimidating displays of military force from China. Beijing treats Taiwan as a breakaway region that must eventually be unified with China — by force, if leaders in Beijing decide that is necessary.

“We are facing a rapidly changing global geopolitical landscape and also tremendous pressure and diplomatic, military and economic coercion from China,” Mr. Lai told the lawmakers. They included two other Republicans, John Moolenaar of Michigan and Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, and two Democrats, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts.

Taiwan will keep strengthening its military, Mr. Lai told them, “but also we hope that the United States and like-minded countries will also continue to back Taiwan.”

Both Ms. Lai and the current president, Ms. Tsai, are members of the Democratic Progressive Party, which has emphasized Taiwan’s status as separate from China, though it has stopped short of implementing formal independence, which Beijing has warned could trigger armed conflict. China, no friend of Ms. Tsai, seems even more antagonistic toward Mr. Lai, who described himself years ago as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence.”

Mr. Lai has said that he will follow Ms. Tsai’s measured approach to China and not seek to change Taiwan’s status quo. But Chinese officials have already signaled that they see little room for negotiations with the new president.

Officials in Taiwan are closely watching the political situation in the United States, especially with the presidential election looming in November, experts say. Many in Taiwan see the United States as a vital partner in the face of China’s threats. But there is also an undercurrent of doubt about American commitment, amplified by propaganda from China, and some in Taiwan argue that it has become too entangled in the rivalry between Beijing and Washington.

A proposed U.S. supplementary budget approved by the Senate, which features aid for Ukraine and Israel, also offers support for Taiwan, including $1.9 billion that could help open up its access to American weapons stockpiles.

But the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has indicated that he will not let the bill go to a vote on the House floor. And billions of dollars in Taiwanese orders of American weapons are already backlogged, reflecting strains on the U.S. military industrial base that existed even before it began sending arms to Ukraine.

Taiwan “absolutely welcomes members of the U.S. Congress visiting Taiwan. But now we’re more concerned about the issue of delayed deliveries,” said Shu Hsiao-huang, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, which is funded by Taiwan’s defense ministry.

At a news conference, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois Democrat, said that Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia and its implications — “making sure that the people of Ukraine succeed in beating back authoritarianism,” as he put it — had come up in the delegation’s meetings.

“As president-elect Lai made very clear, and President Tsai, if for some reason the Ukrainians do not prevail, that will only encourage hostilities against Taiwan,” Mr. Krishnamoorthi said, urging House approval of the additional funding for Ukraine.

People in Taiwan “are watching what’s unfolding in Ukraine very closely,” he told reporters. He said Mr. Lai had shown the visiting lawmakers a picture of orchids in Ukraine’s national colors, blue and gold, that Taiwanese people had grown to show their support.

Even as Republican lawmakers have become increasingly skeptical about aid for Ukraine, many of them endorse military support for Taiwan as a bulwark against China, which they see as a primary threat to the United States. Even so, several policy experts said that a halt in U.S. aid to Ukraine could be unsettling for Taiwan.

Public support in Taiwan for ramping up preparations for a potential Chinese attack rose after the Russian invasion two years ago. The Biden administration has said that Ukraine’s recent withdrawal from the city of Avdiivka reflected Congress’s failure to provide extra funds to support its war effort.

“Our view is that a defeat of Ukraine is going to embolden China, and also would discredit not just NATO, but basically the whole Western democracies, and it would have a psychological impact in Taiwan,” I-Chung Lai, the president of the Prospect Foundation, a Taipei think tank aligned with the Democratic Progressive Party, said in an interview.

China has conducted military activities around Taiwan with increasing frequency in recent years, and it sometimes escalates them to display its displeasure. It has held no major drills in the area since Mr. Lai won Taiwan’s presidential election in January, but Taiwanese officials have said that could change as the May 20 inauguration nears.

This week, China’s coast guard held patrols near Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled island near the Chinese coast, after two Chinese men died in the area. The men were on a Chinese boat that had entered Taiwanese waters around Kinmen, and they died after Taiwan’s coast guard chased the vessel, which capsized. Taiwan has said it is investigating the incident.

Earlier this year, Chinese authorities unilaterally altered an air route that Taiwanese commercial flights take over the strait between the two sides. Officials in Taipei denounced the move, saying it could make flying in the area more dangerous.

Mr. Gallagher would appear well cast to address any anxieties in Taiwan about American support. A former Marine, he has argued that the United States should ramp up weapons production to deter its adversaries.

In early 2023, he became the founding chairman of the House committee on the Chinese Communist Party, which has called for vigorously countering Beijing’s global influence. But Mr. Gallagher said this month that he would not seek re-election to Congress.

“I think — and what we’ve heard today — is that the outcome in Ukraine matters not only for Ukraine and American credibility, but for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and for cross-strait deterrence,” Mr. Gallagher said at the news conference in Taipei.